CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

New Zealander, Volume XVIII, Issue 1742, 15 November 1862, Page 5

CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

[From the “Times.”]

Exactly at the moment that the Americans have been exulting over the matchless strength of their new navy, and that an echo has been found for their boasts in the British parliament, we are treated with an episode in the history of the war which is little inferior in the suddenness of its catastrophe to the story of the Merrimac. From a Federal report, which wo print.in another column, it will he seen how the confidence of the Northerners has been disturbed, and how their entire fleet of Ironsides on the Mississippi has been defied by a new “monster’’ from some Confederate dockyard. The narrative as now given in detail is most extraordinary, but it will conduce greatly to the appreciation of the story if we premise some description of the squadrons which have been so successfully encountered by a single vessel. Mr. Cobdcn was misled by American gasconade when he quoted the other day from a Now York paper a comparison of the British and Federal navies of the disparagement of the former. In the reconstruction of their Marine the Northerners have certainly accomplished much, but “ vessels sheathed in massive plates

o( iron, with mighty engines cased in mail, of power sufficient to crush in pieces and send to the bottom with their crews those wooden ships on which England has hitherto prided herself,” constitute in reality but an indifferent force if measured by our modern standards of efficiency. Of course, an iron-cased vessel under ordi-

nary circumstances might be expected to destroy a wooden one, but these Federal Ironsides are not to lie compared with the models which we are slowly adopting. It will presently be seen that a solitary vessel, itself no kind of match for our Warriors or Northernbcrlands, set the whole Federal fleet at defiance, nor will the exploit appear in .he least degree incredible when the character of that fleet has been explained. The Northerners have now on the Mississippi a very large portion of their new iron navy. In the last twelve months they have added to their Marine, according to a recent report, two iron-clad frigates, 23 iron-clad gunboats, and 9 steam rams, and that catalogue, indeed represents their whole iron-cased fleet, as they had no vessels of this class before. Half these gunboats and all these rams were serving on the Mississippi last month, and were engaged for the most part in the abortive expedition against Vicksburg. None of them, however, are of any very great strength, or even wholly protected with iron. The gunboats arc simply flouting batteries, hastily built for river service, and only iron-plated at par-

ticular points where additional strength or security was

thought desirable. The Carondclet, the Cincinnati, and the 'Tyler, of which mention will be made in the succeeding narrative, were all constructed in Western waters, the two former being nearly identical iu dimensions and armament. Each carries 16 heavy guns, and is partially plated with 2,|-inch iron, but when we add that they cost only £IB,OOO a-picce it will soon lie seen that they cannot he compared with European models. 'The rams are merely old wooden steamers, fitted with iron beaks, and sheathed with plates at the points most vulnerable. 'The instant that a heavy ironclad ship appeared on the scene they are scattered in all directions.

On the 15th of last month, however, the whole flotilla operating against Vicksburg, combined with Commodore Farragut’s squadron from New Orleans, was lying in the Mississippi, at a short distance from the point at which the river receives the water of the Yazoo. For some time it had been rumoured that a “ Rebel ram” was coming down the Yazoo to co-operate in the defence of Vicksburg, and, indeed, the whole story at this point is so exactly like that of the Merrimac that it reads like a repetition of the same tale. After the “ monster” had been looked fur with evident uneasiness for several days, three vessels —two gunboats and a ram—were at length detached from the Federal fleet to run up the Yazoo, and see whether anything could be discovered. The ram took the lead, and shot swiftly up the stream alone, but soon startled her companions by coming back upon them at full speed, “ with every pound of steam she could make.” At a bend of the river she had come suddenly on the monster, lying, like a huge alligator, under the bank, and had so little liked the sight that she instantly retreated, and “ flew by the Carondclet with the words “The. Arkansas is coming 1’ ’’ In another minute or two tite Arkansas came, sure enough—“a long, low, mud-coloured craft, with a short, thick, black smoke-stack in her middle.” Tito Carondelct’s commander boldly brought his broadside round and poured his whole battery into the r.mi as she ran swiftly on, but the halls “ 101 l harmlessly into the water,” with no more effect than might be produced by so many peas. Then came the turn of the Arkansas, and in an instant she had crushed in the gunboat’s side, and then raked her with pointed shot from stem to stern. A few minutes, in short, left the Carondclet a helpless wreck, and the monster then stood on for the Tyler. The captain ol the second gunboat, “knowing her thin frame would stand no chance,” took the best course he could by steaming off at full speed down the stream, with the dreaded enemy at bis heels. I’rcscntly, though with serious loss, he reached the month of the river and the anchorage of the combined squadrons, when “all eyes were strained to see the cause of the Tyler’s commotion.” It was soon ascertained. The “ ram fleet” lying near the mouth of the Yazoo (led in all directions like a shoal of fishing boats, and then “ the long dreaded Arkansas steamed into full view, and headed right for the centre of our fleet.” From this moment the game was her own. Though the Federal vessels were ill-plnecd and unprepared, they hurled every species of missile against the Confederate ship, hut without effect. The monster made her way in delibrate defiance of the squadron, singled out as she went one victim after another for her shot, and finally, reached her appointed haven under the batteries of Vicksburg, I after inflicting a total loss of IPi in killed, wounded, and missing on the Federal fleet. \Yc can understand i

the circumstances were really favourable to this audacious achievement, but we very much doubt, from the details of the narrative, whether the Arkansas could have been stopped on her way to Vicksburg even if the | Fed era Is had received better warning of her intentions. The heaviest ordnance produced no effect upon her j sides, and it is only conjectured that some of the rifled j Parrott guns might, perhaps, have pierced her. The Captain of thcCarondelct attempted to board her, j and actually led a party ou her deck ; hut he asnld not find “the smallest kind of aperture or hole,” and the boarders were baffled. We read in another account of | this engagement that the Arkansas met the hoarding widi a jet of scaldingwatcr from her steam, and that the Carondelct resorted to tfie same weapons in turn, but it is plain at any rate that the Confederate vessel was proof against all attack. She ran the gauntlet of the sqnnndron without receiving any perceptible injury, and, as the distance to he traversed was short and the rams were utterly useless against her solid sides, it is not probable that her course could have been checked by the additional gnus which might have been opened upon her had the Federals been better prepared. It is a question of obvious interest to ask whether this latest illustration of naval warfare has added any-

thing to our anowteuge ot me snujeei, out we no not sec that there is much novelty in the incident before us. If seems simply the story of the Merrimac over again. The Confederates have constructed in secrecy a vessel which, though, no doubt, imperfect according to European nations, is superior to any single ship in the extemporized fleet to the hederals. That fleet is no longer, indeed, a wooden one, as it was in Hampton- 1 roads, but its gunboats and rams have been so hastily | built that they can make no head against a vessel on which more pains have been expended. The one ship of the Southerners proved practically invulnerable ; the dozen ships of the Northerners wore vulnerable at many points. Thes 11 half-plated gunboats have done good service in co-operating with the Federal armies, but they arc no match for a vessel of heavier tonnage cased completely in iron. It will ho curious to see what the future career of the Arkansas may prove. She is the third venture of the Confederates. The Merrimac, or Virginia, was the first, and she, after astonishing the world by her first essay, achieved nothing more, and was scuttled by her own masters. The Louisiana was the second, and she, by some accident, utterly failed at New Orleans, though her appearance had been expected with considerable alarm. The Arkansas is now the third, and she after a brilliant essay *fs now safe under Vicksburg batteries with a

career before her. That she will be of decisive service in the defence of the place we can readily conjecture, but she may, perhaps, attempt a bolder game. The (leet of the besiegers contains several specimens of the old wooden navy of America, and these can hardly be regarded as safe against an enemy which has already set their iron auxiliaries at defiance.

Throughout the whole of the Civil War that has torn the great Western Republic asunder, Europe has only been enabled to watch it from one side. The Northern face of affairs is the only aspect presented to us. The .Southern side is almost as much concealed from ns the half of the moon that is never turned to the earth. We only know of the volcanic fires raging on the concealed hemisphere by the reports of those who have caught a glimpse of them, and describe their destructive powers pretty ranch as they please. The accounts by official observers were long since discovered to be untrustworthy. They have been thoroughly discredited, the attempt to suppress or control the unofficial reports has not succeeded, and all wc know of the war and its effects is derived from the proscribed journalists. Fortunately, they seem to be revenging their exclusion from the camps by a decided increase <f the candour with which they describe what they do see of the conflict, on the points left open to them, despite the Wnr-ofiico prohibition, Wc do

not get the full light of truth at once, but gradually we find pretty strong gleams of it stealing through the irregular cracks in the bushel which the Secretary of War tried to put over it. Thus, six weeks alter the six days of battle at Richmond, we are beginning to have the real measure of one of the greatest military disasters of the present century; and, as the fortune of war seems to have turned against the Federal arms by water as much as by land, wc are also learning the

true state of things on the Mississippi. It is in the description of the siege of Vicksburg, of the gunboat actions on (he river, and the success of the Arkansas

that the candour of the Northern journalists is most remarkable. They now assert that the whole of the operations have been failures; that the naval commanders have been incompetent; that they were surprised and beaten under circumstances that force out hints of something worse than want of ability. The engineers of the army, who were to have made Vicksburg an inland town, by repeating the ancient feat of changing the course of a river, are now held up to ridicule by the revelation of the fact that their gigantic canal is only “ a ditch eight feet wide.” It is scarcely credible that the people of the North have been for several weeks seriously assured that this cutting would be the ruiu of the town for ever. And even now it does not appear to have struck any one how ludicrous was the idea of turning the Father of Waters, a river to which the Thames is a brooklet, through a gutter. We infer from the undisguised sneers of the journals and the hold insolence of the bar, of which wo gave an example yesterday, that an under-current of popular disgust with the management of the war is beginning to find expression, Reflection and comparison have been forced on the people by the terrible admonition of events. Exposure of corruption and rapacity at the seat of Government, the waste of enormous sums of money, the incapacity that political jobbing placed in military commands, the disasters that arc the results of both, must have compelled even the fanatics of the Union to think. How has the South kept armies in the field? flow have those armies beaten the hosts of the North ? The facts must be admitted, and the present slate of Northern feeling shows a strong desire to have them explained. The discontent cannot be for ever clamoured down by abuse of the English press. England has not caused the waste of a ration or the loss of a man. Ridicule and a kind of despairing contempt for the Executive arc the present signs of a sense of national humiliation. The frantic cries raised for continuing the war sound as if rational hope of success in it was expiring. It is felt that appeals to opinion, principle, or patriotism, supported by the most lavish offers of money, will no longer fill the ranks of the Federal army. Its cause, its pay, and its military feeling will no longer keep it together. All its losses have not been in battle. It is stated that 100,000 men are absent from their regiments, and soldiers arc actually being hunted up by the police; commissioned officers are caught for a reward of five dollars a head, and marched in custody to the ships that are to carry them hack to their duty. With this rush out of the army there is now an iron conscription to force men into it. In fact, the land of self-govern-ment and unlimited freedom is ruled by force that is creating a Terror. There is a complete “stampede” of those who are the pith and substance of the nation, flying from the Republic over which the shadow of military despotism is creeping so fast. It is by sheer force this flight is met. Every seaport is watched, and the Canadian frontier is guarded ; the deck of an English steamer is sought, is crowded by fugitives, and there have been actual fights with the police, who arrest all who have no passports. No one can quit Washington without a permit ; no one can leave the country without a puss. Those who are arrested arc taken to the nearest military post and enrolled. The writ ot Habeas Carpus is suspended in their case, and all persons who discourage volunteering are locked it]). A Provost Marshal rules in New York, and the police of that city is turned into a provost’s guard. Thus “involuntary servitude” is now the lot of the white race, who arc compelled to fight, we arc told, to release the negro from it. The rush of Irishmen to the British Consulate in New York Inis been so great that the new “ provost's guard ’ itself had to interfere. There is a keen retribution in this dilemma of the Irish population. They are flying to the Saxon Government for protection as readily as if they had never cursed it. Yet we are not surprised ; the horrors of the war they are avoiding are quite sufficient to convert our bullies into our suppliants. The carnage ol the last actions in that fatal peninsula, the numbers who have returned from it sick or wounded, the reports of bud food, suffering, and disease in the camps, would damp the most warlike ardour. The conflict is also increasing in fury. The Southern Government has declared all the officers of General Pope’s division out of the pale of military law ; if taken prisoners they will he kept as hostages for the lives of Southern civilians, and for every execution of a non-combatant, on any pretext, by the Federal?, a Northern officer will he shot or hanged! This crowns the horrors of the war that thus degenerates into savagery. Commissions in the new levies, we apprehend, will now be loss in request. The fate that threatens the officers of one corps will not “encourage the others,” and the epaulettes arc likely to he as much avoided as the button. Open resistance to the conscription appears to lie rising. The formation of a Secret Society is reported from Indiana, in which 13,000 men—a large number for secrecy —have banded together to prevent Federal enlistment and oppose Federal taxation. In Missouri blood has been already sited in a collision between the citizens, who had met to resist the compulsory draught, and the Slate troops. There is war within war, and in neither of the great or little contests can any one predict the end. The general impression is that the Confederate forces arc advancing on several points, and gradually pressing northwards. Even supposing the Militia levies can lie forced in full number into service, the new men must be drilled and trained almost in the face of an advancing enemy, animated both by intense hatred and continued success; and to meet this coating foe arc only new recruits, without either enthusiasm or training !

Here are all the elements for a prediction which no one yet ventures to make; but they are at least forcing reflection, and to that alone can Europe trust for any real effort to close this miserable conflict, which we begin to regard with pity for till engaged in it. Party spirit insists on a continuance of the war, though it end by forcing the South into the Union as an unpeopled desert. The chief Abolitionist journal anticipates years of battle and destruction ; it says the “ future of America smells of smoke and sulphur,” and exults in the prospect. This is the very madness of philanthropy, grown cruel to the white race in assumed mercy to the black. But, as it paints the future, and as facts illustrate the present, no wonder that men fear the worst, and do not feel themselves either safe or free till they have placed the Atlantic or tiic St. Lawrence between thorn and the burning soil.